A DAY OF LOCKS AND BRIDGES!



COINJOCK, VA
Today was a day of hurry up and wait. We had 14 bridges, locks and swing bridges to clear with limited opening times.It didn't help that overnight someone had sabatoged the electrical wires on 2 bascule bridges. We and 20 other cruisers had to do donuts for almost 3 hours while it was fixed. Once that was behind us, the day was, thankfully, uneventful.

VIRGINIA WINE FESTIVAL



OUT ON A LIMB




OUR NEXT BOAT, PERHAPS

We extended our stay at Norfolk for an extra day yesterday . 
The park right next to our marina was having the VA Wine Festival.
 35 Virginia wineries were represented. It was a day of wine, sunshine, music and fantastic people watching!



                                      
THE COMMODORE THEATRE is a luxuriously restored 1945 Art Deco style motion picture theatre presenting first run films with a fine dining restaurant within the main auditorium.

NORFOLK DAY 2

Having a good day catching up with stuff.....boat washing, vaccuming up pet hair, paperwork, planning, etc. Tonight, we will take the ferry over to Portsmouth to the above theater to see a movie.
Dorsey and Jake are recovering from yesterday's harrowing ride.

                                                      Today's view for 12 1/2 hours!

NORFOLK,VA

What a loooooonnnnngggg day! We left @ 7AM and arrived @ Norfolk at dark thirty. Started out with seas 3-4' out on the Chesapeake. Jake promptly got sick. Dorsey just wanted us to "make it stop!"
After a few hours, the waves did settle down a bit, until we approached the Hampton Roads. As we got near the channel , we had very confused following seas. It was very hard for John to steer the boat. He had it up to 2100 RPM's and we only could go 8 knots (normally we can go 1400 RPM's for 8 knots). We passed another trawler that looked like he couldn't make any forward movement at all. He was struggling to stay on course.

We are so thankful our boat performed so well and we arrived safe. Tonight we are tired, but happy.

Mouth of the Potomac

It is sheer bliss to be back out on the water again. We were welcomed back this AM with a day of sunshine and very calm seas.

It has been a busy, eventful time since we left our house, 10/2. We started out by driving to Hilton Head, SC to see John's mom and drop our car. We moved all the boat stuff to a rental car and drove north to the boat on the Potomac. We dropped off the boat stuff and proceeded up to Philly for a super wonderful weekend with the grandkids. We got to see the Fall colors, go to the pumpkin patch and have a hayride.

Monday,  10/8, we returned to the boat in VA to prepare to head south.. That was not to be. Tuesday. 10/9, we received a call that my sister Kay had passed away from cancer. To add to the day, we returned from running errands to find our boat salon flooded with water. A pipe under the galley sink had broken. We were filled with sorrow over Kay's death, and now we had this awful mess to deal with. We arose the next morning with a call from John's brother, Jim, to say that their 91 year old mother had just passed.

Needless to say, we were on overload. We decided that I alone would fly to Chicago to attend Kay's funeral. John would stay with the boat to deal with the water issues and care for our cat and dog that are with us. John's mom's service will be 11/3. We plan to have our boat there by then.

On a brighter note, because of the delay to the start of our cruise south, we were able to attend the Annapolis Boat Show. It was an interesting, fun event. Since our "little tug"  is currently for sale in Annapolis, we put it in the show. There was lots of interest and traffic, but the offers are not pouring in :-( Yesterday, we drove back to Annapolis to pull the little tug out of the water for the winter. If not sold by 11/12, we will ship it back to Texas on a truck.

This afternoon, we got a call on the VHF radio from the NAVY. We were asked to divert our track,as they were doing live ammo drills in our vicinity. We complied and told them to let us know if we were off their suggested track. They replied "not to worry" as many pairs of eyes were focused on us.

A highlight today is our marina. We are staying at the Dennis Point Marina on the St. Mary's River. It is gorgeous...situated on 50 heavily wooded acres. We took a long walk among the trees with their fall foliage. Dorsey loves this place with lots of good and close dog walking areas.

A GOOD DAY!

UPDATE

A couple weeks ago, when we had Knotugal pulled out to have the rudder fixed, John fell while getting down off the swim platform. He landed on his wrist. It swelled and hurt, but he tried to "gut it out". Anyhow, it was still bothering him, so he went to the doctor and found out he had a fracture. He has to wear the cast for 4 weeks and then should be good as new. The fun never stops !

BACK HOME

We departed the Occaquan Harbor Marina in Woodbridge, VA by car on 8/16....a 1400 mile trip which we did in 2 days :-( We will return to bring Knotugal south in October (after Hurricane season).
We got home to find everything in good order. We are now busy getting caught up on things here. I guess the things we miss the most about home is: weekly visits to Don Picos Mexican restaurant, our friends, a regular exercise routine, our friends, a larger shower, always having a car available, our friends, going to the movies every Sunday, letting Dorsey out the back door and not lifting her on/off the boat, our friends, sitting our on our patio and looking at the lake, having a dishwasher, central time zone,and our friends!
That said, we are already starting our pile for our return to Knotugal in October. We look forward to the adventures that lie ahead on the water!